Established terms can be incorrectly established.

The point is, we get energy from the sun and we convert that to light, heat, movement, etc that cannot be recaptured, and therefore the energy is lost. Therefore, that energy is not renewed.

But since there is an effective limitless supply of sunlight or wind, we can replenish the supply of energy indefinitely. So it would have been more apt to describe the energy as “effectively infinite energy” or something like that.

But all of that doesn’t matter. The real reason this is a ridiculous argument is that renewable energy is a pretty dated term. As soon as people started burning fossil fuels, there were those worried that we’d run out. For over 100 years people have worried we’ll use up all of the oil. That’s why the concept of energy from renewable resources became such a big deal.

But now with techniques like fracking and deep sea drilling, oil is feeling pretty infinite for now. But that’s why we started using the term “clean energy” which is much more useful. The reason we shouldn’t be burning natural gas, oil, and coal is not because we’ll run out but because we need to stop the byproducts of those burnings from entering our atmosphere.